It was a standard-issue tour of New York’s City Hall, although the docent seemed smoother, and hipper, than most.
“This here is George Washington’s desk,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said as he showed a gaggle of excited influencers around his new offices on Wednesday afternoon, the glare from their lofted smartphones reflecting off his suit. “And if you saw the previous mayor’s interview with Ziwe,” he added, “that took place right here.”
The ring lights glowed.
An online army of social media influencers and digital content creators played a major role in propelling Mr. Mamdani to his improbable victory in last year’s mayoral race, amassing public support for the once-obscure state assemblyman one TikTok, Instagram reel and Substack post at a time.
On Wednesday, Mr. Mamdani returned the favor, inviting dozens of “new media” figures to City Hall for a tour and a private news conference. Reporters from “legacy media” outlets like The New York Post and NY1, who aggressively cover the daily workings of municipal government, were prohibited. (A New York Times media reporter was allowed to observe.)
Finding ways to elide the traditional, skeptical press is an increasingly common tactic for politicians from both parties, who use social media to promote their message, with little resistance, to the millions who rely on the internet for news. President Trump and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. staged similar White House events that offered digital outlets and creators an exclusive opportunity to ask questions.
The proceedings at City Hall were not exactly adversarial. “In the past six months I have had so much fun making content for you,” Layla Taremi, a food and beauty influencer who was called on to ask the first question, told the mayor. Ms. Taremi, who wore a bright blue “Zohran” shirt and frequently hypes Mr. Mamdani to her 92,000 Instagram followers, later posted a video of herself dancing with joy by the City Hall steps.
But the excitement, curiosity and engagement of the attendees, many of whom said it was the first time they had been inside City Hall, was palpable.
Avelyn Castillo, a fitness influencer with 50,000 followers on TikTok, said she thought she was being scammed when a message popped up on her Instagram on Tuesday inviting her to a news conference the next day with the mayor. When she realized it was real, “I lost it,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Wait, me?!”
Ms. Castillo, a native New Yorker who lives part time in Atlanta, immediately booked a flight for Wednesday morning. “It just feels so special to be included as a content creator,” she said, adding, “To acknowledge the influence that normal people like us have in the media currently — it feels very nice.”
Many shared the sentiments of Bess Kalb, a writer and novelist with a popular Substack, who posted a delighted selfie on Instagram with the caption, “It was fun feeling unbelievably hopeful in a government building.” City Hall aides said the online reach of the 78 attendees totaled roughly 82 million people.
Mr. Mamdani, whose digital dexterity has been praised as a model for national Democrats, signaled his intention to keep close ties with the city’s online content creators, praising them as “trusted voices in communities across every borough in our city.”
“We need to speak to New Yorkers through every single medium that they see themselves and see the world around them, and all of you are such critical parts of that,” the mayor said. Then he whipped out a phone and snapped what he described as “a very poorly composed selfie” with the crowd.
Most City Hall news conferences do not end with the mayor and his questioners posing for a picture. The reporters in Room 9, the building’s storied press room, seemed less than thrilled. “Here we go,” Craig McCarthy, The Post’s City Hall bureau chief, wrote on social media, noting the exclusion of traditional journalists from Mr. Mamdani’s first formal news conference of his tenure. (A Mamdani spokeswoman responded that the mayor regularly took questions at his daily events around the city.)
Several of Mr. Mamdani’s more famed online collaborators did not attend; Kareem Rahma, the creator and host of “Subway Takes,” for instance, was not around. Mayoral aides, who pledged to hold additional “new media” events, said Wednesday’s event was meant to emphasize creators who focused on specific neighborhoods and lifestyle topics that ranged beyond politics.
One more cynical online personality declared himself impressed.
“It was awesome,” said Alex Hartman, the creator of NoLIta Dirtbag, which satirizes the vanities and status anxieties of clout-chasing Lower East Siders. “As someone who is skeptical of a lot of things, it was just inspiring.”
Mr. Hartman was not called on at the news conference — “My question was going to be, ‘What’s the most expensive piece of clothing that you can have without random people on the internet getting mad at you?’” — but he said the Mamdani administration seemed unusually responsive to digital creators.
A few months ago, he complained on Instagram about “the bump,” a pit at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge. Mr. Mamdani’s account responded — “When I’m mayor,” followed by a salute emoji — and on Tuesday, in one of his first official acts, Mr. Mamdani personally shoveled asphalt into the pit.
“I’m not going to take too much credit,” Mr. Hartman said, although the NoLIta Dirtbag account had pretty much done just that. “Even if we don’t have an actual say, I think it’s just as important to feel that sense of involvement and hope.”
Michael M. Grynbaum writes about the intersection of media, politics and culture. He has been a media correspondent at The Times since 2016.
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